


Prisoner

by leiamoody



Series: The Larger World [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Afterlife, Mysteries of the Force, Other, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5513801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiamoody/pseuds/leiamoody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin is trapped in the Netherworld with no memory of who he was...or he might be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Prisoner In The Dark Valley

_This is death._  
  
His name still remains forgotten. All names here were to remain forgotten and unknown, except for the name of this place...The Dark Valley, a space in the Netherworld where he had been since...how long? How long had he been here, doing nothing more than wandering the shores of Bittersweet Dark, trapped in by the high mountains of black dust, swallowed up by the sky with no stars?  
  
And where was the beginning? What made this happen? What event in time brought him here?  
  
Time...it felt vaguely familiar. Moments forming years...different links in a chain binding together that was called...  
  
 _Only death is true now._  
  
The Mistress spoke. Her voice was made of softness and sadness. She was a form of twisting darkness, deeper than the lightless water of the lake he could not cross.  
  
 _Look at what your sins have brought you._  
  
It was raining. The rain of living essence...life? That was what moments bound together were called!  
  
The Mistress whirled about his head. Death is the only reality for you, Ani. It is your only truth. She swam down past his shoulder, and spread out above the dark grass of the dead field. You are to remain here in this valley, until your two selves can be rejoined.  
  
His two selves? What did that mean?  
  
The Mistress ascended into the midnight sky with no moon or any other celestial light to illuminate the scene.  
  
He did not care. There was nothing to make him aware enough to give him a reason to care about anything. The Dark Valley was the place of loss of care. Nothing existed but the darkness and the river and the smoky sky and the Mistress.  
  
And his name did not exist. But the Mistress had called him something...Ani. Nothing, it meant nothing. It felt like a name...and she had called him that word, so it must be his name.  
  
If he could remember his identity, then why he was trapped here might finally be revealed.  
  
From the farthest shore the Mistress spoke without voice once again. _You are here for atonement._  
  
Atonement, another word with no meaning.  
  
 _Think of sins, Ani._  
  
That word again: _Ani._ And now yet another one that was not familiar...but there was a feeling...sins. Blood. Sins. The living essence pours out from the body at the end of life, that state which is called death, when all sins have been committed. Death comes most painfully to those who have created the most heinous sins.  
  
"Pain is my truth. My sins are the reflection of my pain." His voice uttered those words. The first time he could remember having the ability to speak since...  
  
The twisted dead grey trees sitting high on the mountains murmured with the cold and metallic voice of an unlikely breeze. The voice breathed...the breathing was mechanical.  
  
The sound was not the breathing of life, but the breathing of a life that wasn't alive. But how could that be? Dead things do not breathe. But if the breathing was mechanical, then it belonged to an artificial life form. Something that never was alive, so it could never be dead.  
  
"A machine is not man, but a man can be a machine." Once again there was the sound of his voice.  
  
Perhaps the strange breathing had once been his as well. But he could not remember.  
  
"Who was I?" He called out to the twisted trees and the darkling river and the looming mountains of black dust. "Tell me!"  
  
But no one heard him. And no one could help him.


	2. A Prisoner In The White Heart Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin and The Keeper of the White Heart Abyss have an encounter.

"This is death, dearest."

The voice spoke in a whisper that echoed through the chamber, ripping through him like an explosion.

Anakin cried out in pain.

He was trapped in the darkest of spaces. Caught in the center of a deep and bright abyss ...the light here was so overwhelming, a blinding white. He had been here for what felt like thousands and thousands of years, and here he would remain until eternity claimed him along with the universe and swallowed them both back into the Greatness of Nothing.

"Only death is true now. And you must die again. And again." The Keeper's voice was ice, and it poured into his center.

"Never!"

The voice of the Keeper laughed. "You must die again! You have died before in the physical world. But your soul has been split into two in the Netherworld. So you see, you will die again and again while you are here with me." And she laughed once more, a poisonous sound to his hearing.

He was falling deeper into the center of the abyss now, like a sinking ship being pulled down to the bottom of a sea. Down, down, down...

But then he was pulled back into the glowing frigid nightmare called the White Heart Abyss. Pulled back with brittle fingers made from shards of glass...the splinters ripped into his flesh, creating tiny flickers of pain. The harshness of the white light tore into his eyes, forcing them shut, just to provide some small measure of relief from this misery.

"Open your eyes!"

Anakin held his eyes shut. The harlot could not command him to do anything.

Fingernails like daggers pierced his eyelids, and pulled them back, forcing his eyes open.

"You cannot hide." The Keeper floated before him, a beam of brilliant blue light that only served to make the white walls surrounding him even more unbearable to his vision.

She spun in a circle. Then the form stopped, and transformed into a column. One more shift, and it turned into a woman: raven-haired, with pale skin of ivory; delicately boned, and small in stature; ethereal and poisonous.

She held out her arms, gathering him to her body like a mother embracing her child. "You were a blessing from the Force. But look at what you turned out to become...the ultimate curse." She reached out one finger to trace a dagger-nail around his throat. "You stupid boy. You are the one that did this to yourself."

He ripped himself out of her monstrous clasp. "It was not my fault. I was seduced by the Dark Side."

"Seduced by the Dark Side? Or seduced by that woman?" The Keeper smiled. "I have an idea. Watch now. I will become your beloved."

The corpse-pale face melted away, to be replaced by the familiar and lovely features of Padme.

But this face was false. He knew Padme was gone.

The Padme simulacrum drew back her hand across the face, and dug her dagger-nails into the flesh, drawing blood.

"These tears are her own. She cries in the pit, mourning for you." The Keeper laughed again, a shrill shriek of insane delight. "Even though you killed her! And those tears are what froze in her veins the moment she died. She died right in front of you that day, but you did not feel it."

"No! I did not kill her!"

"You do not remember? Then you must see once again what that day brought!" She pointed at one of the chamber's glaring walls of pure white.

On the wall, a vision began to form...and once more, he saw the nightmare. Of the molten world...then came her ship, descending into the place of hell where everything beautiful and glorious would end. And there was the encounter, then the confrontation...

"No, that did not happen!"

His black-gloved hand curled into claws, and unseen fingers tightened around her throat...she collapsed to the ground.

"She never came to Mustafar!" Anakin pointed to the wall. "That is a false vision!"

The Keeper smiled, a gentle and mocking blossom on her white lips. "Do you forget so easily? Of course this happened."

He turned his back on her. "You lie! I know the truth!"

She materialized in front of him, her hands folded at her stomach in the ancient symbol of prayer. "You cannot deny the truth. You killed her." Her voice lowered into a hiss. "Just as you destroyed so many others." Then the Keeper opened her hands. "That is what brought you here to the Abyss. You made this prison for yourself. So you will remain here. I will continue to show you the truth."

Anakin grimaced. "Lies are all you tell me, and all you show me. I know the truth. She did not die, and I was not the one who took her life."

The Keeper reached out and placed a death-cold hand on his arm. "You will come to know the truth. You will see what a monster you are."

He spun around, looking for an exit out of this torture. "No! No more lies! I am not a monster! Let me go!" His gaze traced quick and frantic lines along the endless walls of white, seeking an exit.

But there was no way out. And no one could help him.


	3. A Prisoner Within His Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin and a version of Padme have an interlude.

"Are you really here?"  
  
"I'm always here, Ani."  
  
“Here” was some perpetual midnight world of blue and silver with some touches of purple along the fringes. It wasn’t Anakin’s ideal version of a dream; his conscious self still craved the brilliant sunlight and green fields of those forever-gone days on Naboo. He sat with Padme on a small marbled globe (of course it wasn’t really his beloved, but the Mistress assuming her form to provide him some comfort). They were surrounded by the expanse of black water known as Bittersweet Dark. The sky was gloomy, striped with white, feathery clouds. A horned moon watched over the landscape of muted light and suspended hope.     
  
He curled into her embrace. "Then why can't I stay with you? Nothing is bad when I'm here. I'm not in pain. I can remember who I am. You're still alive."  
  
"This is a dream. You can always retreat here." Padme's simulacrum kissed Anakin's forehead. "But you cannot rest here."  
  
"Because I'm split in half." His eyes opened to see the face of his beloved, even if it was not truly her face. "The divided man cannot become whole again until he finds his lost heart and becomes the good man once more." Anakin sighed. "It feels impossible."  
  
"Everything is impossible but must be endured before you succeed."  
  
"Are you channeling Master Yoda?"  
  
Padme-in-form-only laughed. "That isn't possible. He isn't here."  
  
"Of course not. He would be in the center of the universe with all the other dead Jedi."  
  
"That isn't possible either. He isn't dead."  
  
"I'm alone in the Netherworld."  
  
"You always forget the passage of years. Nearly twenty years have passed in the Living World, Your dark counterpart is among those who walk in the lowest realm."  
  
Anakin shuddered. "Vader. How can he still exist?"  
  
"Because you were displaced from your body during the transformation."  
  
"Transformation?"  
  
"From the good man into a bad man." Anakin, the good man, was destroyed, split into a conscious being that remembered his identity, and an unconscious half who remembered nothing including his identity. The separated halves were condemned to wander in lonely places; the one who called himself Anakin drifted between the place of torture called The White Heart Abyss (where all dislocated beings were purified) and this little dream bubble where he could retreat into the arms of a creature who assumed the form of his beloved from a strange concept of charity. The shade who impersonated his wife was yet another manifestation of the Overseer who called herself "The Mistress". She belonged to the class of supernatural beings who oversaw the grand scheme of things in the Netherworld. This version of the Mistress was a guide, companion, and source of comfort.   
  
Sometimes he remembered a volcanic planet where his life ended yet he still remained within life.... Mustafar was the place of ending and beginnings. Did a hand reach out to choke the life from Padme? Was it Anakin or Vader who killed her? But that vision felt unreal...some part of his memory knew Padme left Coruscant to give birth on some remote sanctuary world after he departed for Mustafar. Maybe that was some desperate hope instead of concrete truth? Maybe he really murdered the woman he loved?  
  
"Did I kill her?"  
  
The Padme simulacrum cast her gaze across the mist-covered water. "Truth matters so little on this side of the veil."  
  
"But remembering if I killed her would help me become whole. Then I could leave here."  
  
"Not until the final destruction of your mortal shell."  
  
"Of course. But if I could remember, then my conscious and unconscious would be rejoined."  
  
Padme kissed his brow. "Are you prepared to remember those days before the fall?"  
  
Anakin closed his eyes. Visions of those years before he turned into the dark creature flashed in his hidden vision...they were faded, almost bleached white like bones in the desert. Another man lived in those memories, another man who danced upon the edge of good and evil. For so many years he lived within the balance, pulled so often toward the Light but many times drawn into the outer fringe of the Dark. That young apprentice felt alien, someone who belonged not only in the past but another reality. Yet strands of that long ago familiar stranger resonated in the conscious half who could recognize the name of Anakin Skywalker.   
  
Anakin Skywalker, the communion of midichlorians from an unknown mystical source and flesh from an anonymous human woman became a monster with four strokes of a lightsaber. His destiny was clouded once the act of murder was committed. Two roads then existed for him: the path of a Jedi uneasily coexisted with a possible journey into the Sith realm. Every choice became a push toward Light or Dark. The balance of equal futures was intertwined with the balance of good and evil within the galaxy. For so long he fought temptation, resisted the pull away from peace and harmony represented by the Jedi and Padme. But darkness came for him when the dreams of her death began. He became vulnerable to the influence of the hidden Sith Lord, who spent decades hidden in plain sight as Palpatine. He took advantage of that vulnerable state to pull young Skywalker into his clutches. He planted false dreams into Anakin's nightly visions, before those final horrible dreams that preceded the transformation.   
  
Anakin thought he could save Padme from death. But he could not save her...or himself from a living death.   
  
"Is she alive?"  
  
"Life can be defined in whatever fashion you choose."  
  
"That doesn't answer my question."  
  
"Her soul exists."  
  
So much time was lost beyond this waiting place. His interminable stasis as the divided man while Vader took his physical form in the Living World...how much longer could he remain in the Netherworld? Would the poor shadow condemned to wander the Ash Valley remain forever separated from his conscious twin? If both halves of the man called Anakin Skywalker could be reunited, then Vader might be overcome.  
  
"Victory and transformation only comes when you integrate with the dark creature. Vader remains connected to you because you are him and he is you."  
  
“But I wouldn’t even know how to enter that monster’s psyche.”  
  
The Mistress-as-Padme smile was gentle. “You are part of him, and he is part of you. There is darkness within both, yet there is also light. Both emotions are portals into each other.”  
  
“But I don’t know where to find him.”  
  
His companion tightened her embrace around Anakin. “Of course you do. He certainly knows where you are, and how to locate you. Vader has always known, but won’t come here because he realizes it will mean remembering everything.”  
  
“Especially the good memories.”  
  
“Yes, just as you are terrified of the bad memories. Two separate individuals who are really halves of one man must come together if that man wishes to leave this intermediary space and ascend.”  
  
“You speak as if I’m climbing a mountain.”  
  
“To escape from the Netherworld is the upward struggle from limbo into the higher planes, but is ultimately the return to yourself.”


	4. Observers From The Otherworld

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three Jedi discuss Anakin's predicament in the Otherworld.

“Torn asunder, Anakin’s soul shall continue to be.” Yoda set the viewing sphere back upon the pedestal. The vista contained within the crystal globe was far too grim, even for him. The devastated wasteland of one realm, the painful brightness of another…

The Jedi thought they had known everything about the Force, including what came after the departure from the physical body. After the last breath, a soul centered in the Light would leave its fleshy home, and ascend into the Oneness.

But they were wrong.

There was a complicated yet functioning second world that existed beyond the reality of life. Knowledge of the Afterlife had once been common among most civilizations. But the rise of a thousand-year dominance of zealots during the Pius Dea Crusades pushed away this understanding. Some groups, like the Whills, were steadfast in their belief, and maintained archives about their discoveries into all matters of the Afterlife.

Eventually two Jedi found their way to a large group of Whills and learned the secret knowledge. When both Jedi died they became teachers to future individuals who wished to gain access to the hidden wisdom.

One particular Jedi, the maverick Qui-Gon Jinn, became a devout student. Unfortunately he couldn't learn enough during his lifetime to create a spirit body, but still learned how to maintain a connection with the Living World through vocal interaction. This communication allowed him to instruct the final remaining Jedi left alive after the fall of the Republic.

Nineteen years of lessons culminated in the ability for Obi-Wan to complete the transition from material to immaterial body after his death at the blade of Darth Vader.

Yoda, the unofficial master of both Jinn and Kenobi, was still a resident of the Living World, but was able to cross the barrier that separated the Two Worlds and interact with the departed men.

Obi-Wan reached out and drew the viewing sphere to his hand. “What is the nature of this place where his soul resides?”

“Not one location. His soul is not complete.” Master Yoda was patient. But this response was inadequate to the predicament Anakin seemed to be in.

“He’s made to suffer because he was a Sith?” He could see nothing in the sphere: only smoke, black and impenetrable. “We cannot leave him down there.” Anakin had been a good man. During the Clone Wars, he was the only shining light in the middle of that insane conflict; the Chosen One, blessed with midichlorians, became a legend, inspiring many to keep going even as the galaxy collapsed inward.

But then came implosion. Everything and everyone within the galaxy were taken under by the pull of the Dark Side. Anakin walked blindly into the lair of temptation provided by the hidden Sith Lord…but his inability to see into the heart of darkness was equaled by

“Forgiveness is not so easily granted.” The ethereal form of Qui-Gon Jinn emanated within the observation space."Redemption is necessary for the descended soul. The evolution of progress upward back into the Light requires direct intervention."

"Which neither one of us is equipped to do," Obi-Wan replied.

"The most effective contact would be from someone connected to him. Preferably a blood relation," Qui-Gon said.

"But neither Luke or Leia are ready. They don't know Anakin is their father," Kenobi replied. "And to bring up the matter while Luke is yet untutored in matters of the Force would be disastrous to his training."

Qui-Gon nodded. "Leia has no awareness of her potential, so she is not yet able to provide assistance." He contemplated a shifting landscape of blue-and-purple-tinged-with-gold flares light that surrounded the observation chamber. This room was a space formed by collective thoughts. Since a trio of Jedi decided to convene for a meeting, they gathered in a recreation of the Jedi Council Chamber. This was not their first gathering, but it was the most recent which occurred since Kenobi had been slain in a duel with his former padawan and the current object of discussion.

"There are a few beings who happen to be skilled intermediaries," Qui-Gon said. "One in particular was vital to my understanding of the Two Worlds."

"Sibylla Orien?" Kenobi peered out a false window at the band of shifting light.

"I do believe she has the necessary qualifications, based upon my experiences with her."

The woman in question was part of an elite group known as The Ascended, former living sentients who underwent various trials to become observers over affairs in the Two Worlds. Sibylla had existed within twenty-one physical incarnations, including such lifetimes as a professional gambler and Shaman of the Whills. Once she completed her final incarnation, the spirit that animated these various personalities performed the various rituals necessary to become a member of The Ascended. She then functioned as counselor to various individuals, including Jinn and Kenobi.

"She could also contact a former soul counselor who chose to assume a body to help Luke discover the Afterlife. Her experience combined with Sibylla's should prove beneficial to Anakin," Qui-Gon replied.

"Blood relations they are not," Yoda pointed out.

"But Meaithe will have contact with Luke in several years. She will be able to guide him into the lower realms."

"So Anakin will remain divided until the appropriate moment," Kenobi replied.

"Two individuals share one soul they do. Until one is destroyed the other separated must remain." Yoda frowned. "So focus upon the unification of Anakin and his dark side counterpart we cannot."

"Not for the present. He still must struggle to reunite his conscious and unconscious halves of his present self. Once that has been accomplished, only then can his son, and perhaps his daughter as well, help him ascend back into the Light."


End file.
